One of the emails which looked official . We have blocked out the victim’s personal details

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Trading standards officers have warned that scammers are targeting people in Bracknell after a bank worker of 26 years has been left out of pocket by a bank transfer con.

The Sandhurst man, who asked not to be named, has been left owing more than £1,500 to his bank after he was caught out by a scammer.

The 62-year-old, who was made redundant last year, replied to an email offering up to £1,400 per month for just five to eight hours’ work per week.

The ‘job’ involved the man being given money via a bank transfer that he was then to transfer into a foreign account under the premise that he was doing it to help foreign people use UK web auction sites.

The Sandhurst man had £1,700 transferred into his bank account and was asked to transfer this amount less 10 per cent into an account of a Russian based in Saint Petersburg named Sergey Fomin, via Western Union.

It was only after the man had completed the transfer to the Russian that he was contacted by his bank who told him that the initial transfer was fraudulent, meaning he must now pay the money back into his account

The man, who contacted The Standard after he read our story about a couple who were caught out by a similar scam last month, said: “I feel stupid, I got caught.

“After 26 years working in banking I shouldn’t have been so naïve, but I was.

“I don’t like having been taken for a fool but it was my fault.

“If you’re in your sixties and you’ve been made redundant it can be difficult to get another job. This sounded legit – I asked them for details and they gave me a tax number and an address – but they weren’t. None of them are.”

The man reported the scam to the police and Bracknell Forest Council’s trading standards department and must now face an agonising wait to see if he can get any of his money back.

Council trading standards officer John Nash said the reason the scammers use Western Union and similar organisations is that the recipient of the money does not need to supply bank details to retrieve the cash.

John added: “All they need is someone who has ID and knowledge that the transfer is going to happen.

“This is a classic bank scam.

“The basic rule is that you should never provide anyone you don’t know with your bank details.

“If you are doing a job or you have won a prize what is the logic in them asking you to pay money out of your account? That should set alarm bells ringing straight away.”

John also warned that there are other, potentially more serious, scams beginning to surface in Bracknell.

He said: “So-called ‘boiler room scams’ are where people are called up and told about an investment opportunity.

“The callers aren’t just cold calling, they will be aware of share registers and will contact people who invest in shares.

“They start off small, with little investments. They even pay people back, as if their investments have paid out.

“They build up the pressure gradually, gaining your trust and asking for bigger and bigger investments.

“It can last for months, years even, and it’s only when people go to cash in their investments that they find out they aren’t real.

“They started out in America but they are making their way over here.

“We are aware of people in Bracknell who have been contacted but haven’t lost large sums of money but I would be stunned if there aren’t more people who have fallen for it.

“The advice is simple – legitimate financial organisations will never contact you in that way.”